


For a Million Years

by OneOverClover



Category: The End Of The Fucking World (TV)
Genre: Demisexuality, F/M, Follow up to season 2, Idiots in Love, awkward sexual encounters, dealing with mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:33:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneOverClover/pseuds/OneOverClover
Summary: Weeks after the incident with Bonnie, James is living in the cabin at Alyssa's aunt's house while she works to pay back her mum. Meanwhile Alyssa is struggling to get a handle on her mental health. Saying "I love you" can't fix everything, but then again, they never expected it to.Basically this is a continuation of how James and Alyssa's relationship evolves shortly after the end of season 2. There are some issues the show doesn't give any closure on, so I self-indulgently decided to tackle them myself.
Relationships: Alyssa/James (The End of the Fucking World)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s a blood flow issue,” the doctor says as the ultrasound technician moves his device across James’ abdomen as if he were a pregnant woman. “A major vessel leading into your groin was severed, either by the bullet or during the emergency surgery right after.”

James didn’t consider himself sexist, but he had really been hoping to talk about this with a male doctor. As it stands he’s lying on the exam table with a paper sheet barely covering him from his private bits down to his knees. He isn’t sure how he even has it in him to be embarrassed about his body anymore after being exposed to literally dozens of medical workers during his recovery. 

“Can it be fixed?” he asks.

The doctor waves the technician away leaving the pair of them alone in the exam room. “Well, we can give it a go,” she says crossing her legs on her stool. “The process would involve removing a section of vein from somewhere else, probably your thigh, and patching up the damage. We could do it laparoscopically, so any additional scarring would be minimal. Of course, if you’re fine with how you are now, there’s no need to go through with it.”

Before Alyssa, James almost certainly wouldn’t have bothered. It wasn’t that the thought of sex squicked him out or anything. It was just plainly uninteresting _._

Things were different now, though.

“Okay,” James says.

“Okay, what?” the doctor asks.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

———Three weeks earlier———

“Pull your trousers down, I want to see.” There’s no build up to it. Like so many of the things that come out of Alyssa’s mouth, the words shoot out abruptly and vaguely out of context.

James had been talking to her about how he had to lean on his dad when he was learning to walk again. He’s growing to like talking about his dad.

“What?” He feels a hard lump building in his throat.

“I want to see where you were shot.”

They’re sitting on the bed in her Aunt Leigh’s cabin which she’s renting to James on the cheap. Alyssa’s mum is none too happy about it, but he thinks Alyssa may have begged her aunt to take him in. He has enough cash now that his dad’s life insurance policy has come through, to stay there for a while if he’s careful. After that, shit, he supposes he could try to sell his old house. It’s not like living there feels like an option for him anymore.

“It doesn’t really look all that bad on the outside, most of the damage was internal.” His belt buckle clinks as he hesitantly unfastens it.

“Yeah, I figured,” she says sounding unimpressed.

He stands and cautiously slides his jeans from his hip revealing the scars. There’s two long, thin ones from operations that disappear into his underpants and then a more circular one on his side where the bullet went in.

Alyssa brings a hand up to grip his hip running her thumb gently around the edges of the gunshot wound. “Do they hurt?”

James shakes his head, “Not the scars, no.”

She moves her hand lower and strokes the scars from his surgeries, “What hurts you then?”

He feels like he would need an encyclopedia’s worth of words to give a complete answer to the question, so he goes with a short response. “There was a lot of damage to my hip joint and the muscles there. It’s what caused me to have to learn to walk again.”

She looks up at him with eyes full of concern and tilts her head up to kiss him. James bends down to meet her lips and puts his hands on her waist. Kissing Alyssa never gets old. You never know exactly who she is going to be that day. Besides, he thinks he might be getting better at it. It’s a soft kiss this time, their lips lightly brushing together in tandem movements. Then he feels her hand move suddenly down to cup his privates.

He immediately pulls his face away from her. “What are you doing?”

“You said you hadn’t tried.” She doesn’t squeeze him, just holds him there in her palm. “Can you still feel it?”

His hands fly up to cover his face in shame, “Alyssa, I don’t think- ”

“Can you feel it, when I touch you?” she demands.

James takes a deep breath, “I can feel everything fine. I just don’t think it _works._ ” His voice sounds harsher than he means it to.

“For fuck’s sake, James, just let me try!” she snaps at him. She hasn’t snapped at him in a while.

He tilts his head up toward the ceiling not wanting to look her in the eyes as he nods. “Okay.”

His mind flashes back to that night. That terrible night before everything went belly up. The night he’d killed for her. He’d thought he’d been a psychopath. He was so full of shit. Now when he looks back at that moment, all he can see is an innocent boy, dancing with a girl while on some reckless adventure. He was tipsy and Alyssa had tried to suck him off, and at first, he had thought he should just let it happen. He had gotten hard then, just from the feeling of her mouth on him. Honestly at the time, he had been a bit surprised.

_It’s okay for women. They can just lie back; think of England._

That’s what his dad had told him.

_Us men, we have to be England._

Now as her hand tries to work him over his underpants, he can’t be England. He can’t be France. He can’t even be Malta. His body is tense as a wire, and he knows the impression he’s giving off isn’t of someone who is enjoying this.

James has always been aware he appreciates women in a way that other men just didn’t appeal to him. The thought of touching a specific one just never meshed right with him. So, when he wanked himself off as a teenager, he had just focused on the feeling of his own hand, not even bothering to try to imagine himself with someone else.

Alyssa stops her motions and looks up at him with a pouted lip, “Are you sure this isn’t just because you don’t want me?”

James reaches down and clutches the back of her head, the fingers of his good hand lacing with his bad one. “How can you even ask that? The only thing I’ve ever wanted is you.” Fuck, he hates how pathetic it sounds, but it’s true. She’s the only one who has ever done anything for him. Now she’s touching him in the way he’s thought of for the past two years and he can’t do anything about it.

“Alright,” she says releasing his sensitive bits.

In that moment, he’s terrified; terrified that she might mistake his physical issues for feelings, but then she wraps her arms around him resting her cheek against his scars. “You know, people have sex lives that look all sorts of different ways.”

“Yeah,” he says unhelpfully. The warmth of her feels pleasant against the unmarred stretches of his skin.

As suddenly as the moment began, it ends. Alyssa releases him and stands up. “I have to get dressed for work,” she says collecting her jacket from the back of a chair. “Is it alright if I stay here with you tonight?”

James pulls his trousers back up leaving his belt dangling unfastened. “Yeah, of course.” It had been about a month and a half since he’d moved in, and she’d never spent the night with him before. Maybe she thought it a bad look for a married woman. The divorce had only gone through the previous week.

\-------------------------------------------------

Alyssa spends a lot of time working at the cafe these days. More than she did before. She says she wants to pay her mum back for the wedding, and then she and James could get the fuck out of there. She’s never said where exactly it is she wants to go next. It probably hasn’t occurred to her yet. Three times a week, she has a visit with her psychiatrist. It seems like rather a lot to James, but she’s been quite a bit more stable lately, so probably best to leave it to the professionals.

James saw a therapist when he was younger after his mum died. He saw one again while he was still in hospital. They had come and sat down by his bed and asked him if he had any mental health concerns. He had no idea where to start. He permanently disfigured his hand in a fryer. He used to kill animals just to be able to feel something, but now the notion makes him violently ill. He paid some guys to beat the shit out of him. He was sexually assaulted in a bathroom a few days ago. Oh, and he had been plotting to kill his girlfriend, but not anymore. All of those were things he probably needed to talk with someone about, but that’s not what he decided to lead the conversation with.

“Do you think that killing someone can make you a better person?”

The therapist gaped at him, obviously a bit blindsided, “How do you mean?”

“It’s like it flipped a switch in me. Like suddenly, I felt things that I hadn’t been able to feel in years. Almost normal, you know? I mean, still fucked, but fucked like a human being.”

The rest of their session together hadn’t gone well. James isn’t sure if they were a shit therapist or if he was just above their paygrade.

He has a lot of free time these days. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he drives into town and goes to night classes. He figures his money is going to eventually run out someday, and he’ll have to find a job. Manual labor probably isn’t an option for him now with his injuries. Best to have as much education as he can.

James is not really sure where the rest of his time goes when Alyssa isn’t around. Sometimes he sits by the water and just clears his mind. Sometimes he sees her ex-husband there as well out rowing. James knows he must spot him too. It should make him feel awkward, but really, he just feels bad for him.

\-----------------------------------------------------

Alyssa bursts through the door of the cabin like hellfire that night, still in her waitressing uniform. She grabs James by the front of his shirt and walks him backward until he hits the edge of the bed and falls over onto it. Straddling him, she crawls up his body and starts kissing him so roughly he thinks their lips might start bleeding.

He gasps for breath when she finally pulls back. Her hand is pressing against his chest pinning him down. “I want you to finger me.”

He thinks that’s probably a normal thing for someone in a relationship to ask for. “Okay.”

She pulls the bottom of her dress from under her knees and lifts it off over her head. When James thought about Alyssa, he rarely ever thought about her actual body. Seeing her like this, that feels quite silly now.

Surprising himself, he reaches around her back and grabs the band of her bra. He fumbles with it for a moment before he remembers something his dad had told him once after too many beers on the couch.

_You’ll think you’ll need to pull them apart, when what you should be doing is pushing them together._

The hooks on the edge of the band come loose and he pulls the straps from her shoulders. “Thanks, dad.”

“What?” Alyssa asks snapping her attention to his face.

Shit. Did he say that out loud? “Nothing.”

She flings her bra off the edge of the bed and crawls off him, “Whatever.”

James is worried he’s put her off, but then she lays down beside him in nothing but her panties. “You’re a little overdressed, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says sitting up to take off his shirt. Her eyes immediately look to his scars then flicker back up to him. “Everything okay?”

“I thought you’d be touching my tits by now.” She sounds disappointed.

“Do you want me to?”

“Do you even like this?” she asks.

“I do.” James nods vigorously. His hand rises quickly and palms her breast. He realizes too late he wasn’t thinking and used his bad hand.

Alyssa rolls her eyes at him. “God, I dunno if I should let you poke around my fanny now.”

He drops his hand to the bed, “Sorry.”

“I’m only joking,” she says sliding her thumbs into the waistband of her panties. Without ceremony, she slides them down her legs and lays on her back naked beside of him.

James allows himself a few seconds to just look at her. He’s actually done it; she really wants him.

She reaches over and grabs him by the wrist. “Do you know what to do?”

In theory, yes, he understands the basic mechanics. He’d even searched a few videos on the internet in the past out of curiosity. Now he’s thinking maybe he should have watched more. “Will you show me?"

“Alright.” Alyssa guides his hand down and presses his index finger into the right spot. “There,” she says and begins moving his finger to rub herself with. “Like that.”

She continues the rhythm for a bit before releasing his hand and leaving it up to him. He tries to continue exactly as she had showed him. “Is this right?”

“Don’t press so hard, it’s fucking sensitive down there.”

“Sorry,” he says lightening his touch which makes a small little moan escape her throat. His heart nearly explodes in his chest. “Do I just keep going like this?

“Yeah, it can take a while sometimes.” She turns to look at him. “You should kiss me, it might help.”

The thought of trying to multitask while doing this is intimidating, but he doesn’t want to let her down. He bends forward and takes her mouth in his.

She was right though. It doesn’t take too much longer, and he can feel her getting slicker. Her body starts to writhe under his touch, but she says to keep going. It’s almost more than he can bear. He wants more. He wants to be with her the way men are supposed to be with women.

But he can’t.

He’ll never get the chance.

Alyssa climaxes with a chorus of “Oh fucks” and “Shit, shit, shit.” James wouldn’t have it any other way. She pulls his hand away from her and lies panting on the sheets. The skin on her cheeks and chest are flush in a way he’s never seen.

“Did I do okay?” he asks.

“Not bad.” From her that might as well be high praise.

It’s over now. They should still be going. Moving on to other things. But they aren’t because it’s over.

Alyssa seems to sense his despondence. She turns over toward him and puts a hand on his face. “It’s alright, you know. If all we ever have is this.”

“Is it?” he asks blankly.

She pulls him closer pressing her face into his chest and he wraps an arm over her.

“Sometimes I hate myself,” she says. “For not letting you have sex with me that night on the beach.” Her voice is shaky, and James thinks she might be about to cry. He’s usually the one who cries.

“Don’t feel bad about that, Alyssa,” he says stroking her hair. “You never have to do anything you don’t want to. Besides, we had been through a lot.”

“I just… I thought we had time.”

The thing is, they have time now. As far as he can tell, they have all the time in the world. It doesn’t matter.

He has to change things. At least he has to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm posting this fully aware that no one will see it as this fandom is dead, but sometimes you just have a story inside you that you need to get out, you know?
> 
> I feel like the show made it pretty obvious that James is demisexual, but it's not something I've ever seen discussed, so maybe not? 
> 
> I'm actually nearly finished writing this, and the more I wrote, the more I thought that James' intimacy issues are more likely to be psychological than physical, but that's an angle for another story.


	2. Chapter 2

Alyssa hasn’t told James that she’s been taking pills. Not to get high or anything. The ones prescribed to her by her psychiatrist. They help even her out, but there’s no medical treatment for having a shit personality. At least that’s how she feels. The biggest project her doctor has given her to work on, is to try to be more kind to the people she cares about. She doesn’t feel like she’s doing so great.

She tries to spend as much time as she can at the café. Not just to pay off her mum, but because when she’s working it’s easy to zone out. Her mum hasn’t really spoken to her since she filed for divorce, even though they both still live in her aunt’s house. That’s alright. Alyssa’s still pissed about her making James write her that letter. In a way, the marriage was all her mum’s fault to start with. Sometimes she wishes that her mum would just move out with the twins so that it would just be Alyssa and Leigh, but that would probably mean that her mum had found another shit man to cling to.

She likes that James stays in the cabin and doesn’t really go anywhere. It puts a proper amount of space between them and makes it so she always knows where to find him when she needs him.

Todd doesn’t come into the café anymore. Least ways not when she’s there. Honestly, she never thinks about him until she spots him on accident while she’s out. She told her psychiatrist that she does feel bad about what she did to him when she remembers he exists.

When she finishes paying off her mum, she’s asked James to take her away from this place. Alyssa hasn’t told him, but she thinks she might ask him to stay at his old house for a while. He’s afraid of going back, but he has a hard time saying no to her. In the end, it’s not where they go that’s important, so long as they’re together.

Alyssa’s worked an early shift that day so by mid-afternoon she’s trudging off to the cabin to see James. She wants him to drive her into town to see a film. When she arrives, there’s a note on the door saying that he’s gone to see a doctor. It doesn’t say why. She rarely ever feels anxious about anything anymore, but the thought of something being wrong with him creates knots in her stomach. He’s had a lot of things inside him repaired, what if something’s not right?

The lake’s a bit too cold for most people to go for a proper swim, but that’s how she likes it. It’s a shock to her nervous system when she dives in. James probably hates bathing in it. Just another reason they need to get out of there. It’s nearly sundown when James’ car pulls up to the cabin. Alyssa is still paddling around in her underthings when he gets out.

“You’re going to catch pneumonia if you stay in there too long,” he says walking to the water’s edge.

“I’m used to it now.” She stands and begins wringing out her hair. “I can get used to anything.”

He fetches a towel from inside and wraps it around her shoulders. Back in the cabin, James immediately sets to making her a cup of tea to warm her up.

“Gin would work better,” she says.

“Just finish this first, okay?”

Sometimes she wonders if he’s actually a figment of her imagination. That in reality she lost him on that beach, and now she’s sitting here having tea with a hallucination. Maybe if he got out more and interacted with other people, he’d seem more real.

“What did you go to the doctor for?” she asks.

James clinks his teacup down on the table and purses his lips but doesn’t say anything.

“You were gone for an awfully long time.”

“I… um…” He looks nervous.

“James, is there something wrong with you?”

“No!” he says too quickly. “No, I just – I wanted to talk to someone about… about.”

 _“About what?”_ She sounds so angry. Why does she sound angry? She isn’t angry. She’s concerned.

He looks sheepishly at his knees. “About my problem. My _intimate_ problem.”

“Oh.” Shit.

“I… I guess I just wanted to see if there was anything they could do for me.”

Alyssa wishes he would have told her before. She can usually tell exactly what’s going on with him, but other times she can’t wrap her mind round him. “What did they tell you?”

“They say there’s a surgery they can try,” he says shakily. “There’s an issue getting blood to there, and they might be able to do something about it. Perhaps not though. It’s all a bit of a gamble.”

“Do you want sex? I mean, is that something you even think you’d like?”

He looks down considering her question. “I want it with you. I think about it sometimes, what it would be like having that with you.”

She reaches out and grasps his hand in both of hers, the weird one. She doesn’t care about that anymore. “And before that. Before me, did you ever want it?”

James just stares at the floor, a vacant look in his eyes.

“I’m not asking you to do this for me, James. You’ve had so many surgeries already, and-”

“I am attracted to you,” he interrupts her. “I am. I don’t know if I understood what that meant before, but I want to be with you in every way possible. I want to be with you like _that_.”

She wants to put her arms around him and protect him from the world. It might be that that’s what keeping him in this cabin has meant for her. Hiding him away so that nothing can hurt him again.

“Is this about what I said the other day? About that night on the beach?”

“No, not really. I… I’d just like you to trust me on this. It’s something I’d really like to do.” He looks like he might be about to cry again, and she hates that she’s always making him cry. She thinks it might be because he blocked up his sadness for so long that his reservoirs are full, so now any bit of extra sadness just spills over the edges.

“James…” she hesitates. “I love you.”

He looks her in the eye then. They don’t do that a lot. It’s just how they roll.

She runs a hand down his face and cradles his jaw. “Just the way you are. You don’t have to change anything to make it happen.”

Her psychiatrist might actually be proud of her for that one.

“Alyssa, I love you too, but I’ve already scheduled the procedure. I need to do this.”

She can’t tell him what to do with his own body. Not that she wants to. Alyssa is worried that something could go wrong with the surgery. That being in hospital might stir up bad memories from when they were separated. Or worse, make him depressed about his dad being dead again.

“Alright, but if it doesn’t work, you can’t get all fucked up about it okay?”

“Okay.”

She leans forward and hugs him, holding him close to her. She knows for sure she doesn’t deserve him.

\---------------------------------------------

They don’t talk at all on the cab ride to the hospital. He’s explained to her that they’re not really cutting him open, but he’ll still have to spend a couple of nights there afterward. He’s booked a room at an inn nearby for her. She asked if he could make the reservation for a few extra days. Just in case the procedure works, she doesn’t want to have their first time in the cabin. She had had her first time in the cabin with her ex-husband. No need to make it weirder than it already is.

James gets signed in at the lobby and kisses her on the forehead before he walks back with a nurse. There’s no one but her in the surgery waiting room, but it feels like there’s no one else in the entire solar system. When James first came back to her, she’d been terrified of him because he made her feel things. Now she’s just terrified of losing him.

Alyssa keeps getting up to grab cups of coffee just so she has something to do. There’s no television, no magazines, nothing to take her mind off things. She’s starting to get the caffeine jitters. Fuck, at this point she even wishes she had a phone she could dick around on for a while.

The tension falls from her shoulders after a nurse comes out and says they’ve wrapped up the surgery. James is alert, but still quite loopy when they finally let her back to see him. It makes her giggle to see someone who’s usually so serious acting goofy like this. He’s being very affectionate and keeps telling her how much he appreciates her being here for him. She wonders if he was this nice to his dad when he was waking up from the surgeries after the shooting. He’d been quite shit to his dad before. Now when he talks about him, you’d have thought they were great pals. Maybe they were toward the end. She wouldn’t know.

Nearly the instant he’s back to himself James’ demeanor takes a hard shift toward the paranoid. He’s convinced the operation hasn’t worked.

“What did you expect, to wake up with your tent already pitched?” From the look on his face, that probably wasn’t the most helpful thing she could have said in the moment.

Later the surgeon comes to his room to talk to him. She says he may not know if the operation was a success until the swelling goes down. It could take a few days. That seems to calm him down a bit, but Alyssa can tell how impatient he’s feeling. She doesn’t know how to deal with him right now, so she walks down the street to a diner and eats an order of chips. She tries to bring some food back for James, but of course he won’t eat it. She eats his meal too. Thinking about the day her metabolism finally goes to shit terrifies her.

Alyssa doesn’t want James to have to stay overnight in hospital by himself, so she refuses to check into the inn that night. Sleeping in the chair by his bed gives her a crick in her neck and by morning she’s in a bitchy mood. She argues with James because he won’t finish his breakfast, and says something stupid she immediately regrets (“How can you expect to fuck anyone if you don’t eat enough calories to have any energy?”)

James asks her to leave him alone for a while, so she goes down and sits in the lobby to feel sorry for herself. Todd had told her that she didn’t deserve to be with anyone because she doesn’t treat people well enough. James just lets her treat him like shit. It’s not surprising, really. She’s all he has. Her psychiatrist says it’s normal for your mental health to recover slowly. She just hopes James will stick around long enough to see her through to the other side.

It’s pouring rain outside, but she goes for a walk anyway to clear her head. She stops at a bakery on the way back and buys a couple of scones. Water drips off her clothes as she walks back through the hospital, and a janitor yells at her as she walks by. Alyssa drops the sopping wet paper bag in James’ lap without saying a word. He silently eats both scones. She had meant for one of them to be hers, but she’s never seen him with such an appetite and finds it fascinating.

“You didn’t have to eat those to make me happy, you know.”

“I didn’t do it for you, I was just hungry,” he says not looking at her.

She gets up and sits on the edge of his bed.

“They said I could check out tomorrow morning,” he says.

“James, I’m going to treat you better. I will.” She fiddles with the edges of her sleeves to have something to do with her hands. “It’s just for a long time, no one was ever very good to me, and I never - I never learned how.”

“I know.”

“I’m so tired of being mean to everyone. I’m pretty sure I do it to push people away.”

“I know.”

“I’m working to change, but it’s going to take a while.”

“I know.”

“Can you say any fucking thing else other than _I know_?” Shit. She’s hopeless.

“Alyssa, I love you…” he chews on his lip in hesitation. “But sometimes you exhaust me.”

“That’s understandable.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes before James speaks again, “I got up and moved around a bit while you were out. I’m really not too sore.”

“That’s good,” she does her best to smile.

“Will you go check in at the inn tonight?”

“Alright.”

\---------------------------------------------------------

The bed is pretty good for a cheap room, so at least Alyssa has that going for her tonight. She doesn’t understand why she gets like this. Especially to the one person she actually cares about.

There’s a crack in the ceiling right above the bed and she stares up into it. It’s weird to think she might have sex with James right where she’s lying now. She’s sort of compartmentalized him into a different part of her brain. The only time she had met James’ dad, she asked him about James being asexual. She hadn’t meant it at the time, but later she had thought she might have been right. Until that night on the beach.

She thinks virginity is a social construct made up by men to make people feel bad about themselves. Still, it would have been sweet for them to have their first times together. He would have been really gentle. Alyssa still might get to be his first time though. She hadn’t given it a lot of thought until now. The possibility suddenly seems a lot more real.

He’d done much better than she had expected when she let him touch her a few weeks ago. But then again, her expectations had been low. She does think he’d eventually get quite good at it. He listens and pays attention, and those are the most important things.

\-----------------------------------------------------

She takes a cab to pick James up the next morning. He’s fully dressed and walking fine when she meets in the lobby. He seems in good spirits. Sometimes just seeing him in a good mood is enough to put Alyssa in a good mood as well. Funny how that works.

They have breakfast together, and James nearly finishes his omelet. She had thought he might ask to go straight back to the inn after that, but the two of them spend a bit of time out in town. They go into a candy shop, and he buys her some chocolates which she polishes off in a half hour.

Afterward they go to the cinema to see a horror film. He wraps her arm around her and rubs her shoulder when a jump scare causes her to flinch. Before she started taking her medication, films like this would have only bored her. Now there are parts that have her nearly covering her eyes. It’s odd to realize that you’ve missed the ability to be frightened.

Seeing James out in public like a real human being is comforting. There are times, though when she catches people staring and she wonders if they recognize they pair of them from the newspapers. It was inevitable, but she still wants to tell them to fuck off. She doesn’t, so that’s definitely a sign that she’s recovering. Or maybe she’s just growing up.

They have dinner and then stop at a store and buy some wine. It’s probably a stupid idea since he’s just had surgery, but she doesn’t want to chastise him. They split the bottle in a park, and then go to a pub and lose terribly at trivia. Who would have thought neither of them have a good grasp on pop culture?

They’re quite drunk by the time they stumble back to the room at the inn, and they fall on top of each other on the bed making out sloppily. It lasts for a few minutes until James passes out on her. Alyssa pulls his pants off to make him more comfortable before pulling hers off as well and tucking the pair of them in. He looks so innocent when he’s sleeping; that’s her last thought before she’s out for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, it was really hard for me to try to get into Alyssa's head. Let me know if you thought this was okay!


	3. Chapter 3

Alyssa is woken up the next morning by the sound of the rubbish being picked up in the alley. It’s usually a sure omen of a shit day ahead, but despite her slight hangover, she’s feeling uncharacteristically optimistic. The sun is shining through the window, nearly blinding her so it must still be early. James is asleep, cuddled in behind her under the sheets with an arm around her waist. His other arm is pressing into her back – or…no?

“James!” She flips over and starts shaking him by his shoulders. “James, wake up.”

Groggily he blinks awake and rubs a hand across his eyes, “Wha timeizit?”

“James, look,” she says with a downward glance.

He’s perplexed for a moment, but then he quickly throws the sheets back. “Holy fuck.”

He grabs the band of his underpants and pulls it down, exposing himself. She had thought he might be a bit more shy about it. 

He’s totally stiff.

His other hand covers his mouth and tears well up in his eyes. The part of her that’s still an arsehole wants to laugh at the notion of a guy crying at the sight of his own prick, but then she feels stinging at the backs of her eyes as well.

She places a hand on his chest, “Oh, James.”

“It worked,” he sputters out from behind his hand.

She cradles his head and pulls him close to her, letting him cry it out. Eventually he calms himself down enough that she feels like she can ask him something. “What would you like to do?”

“What?”

Alyssa rolls her eyes, “Would you like to do anything here at the inn? With me?” The choice needs to be his. She’d never forgive herself if it ended up as something he regrets. The weight on her shoulders is a near physical thing.

“I… think… yeah, we should do that.”

She smiles because it seems like such a normal boy answer to the question. “Alright, let’s shower first.” Alyssa’s had enough experience now to know that clean sex really is the best sex.

“Okay.”

“Come with me?” she asks holding a hand out to him. He takes it, and Alyssa pulls him along into the bathroom.

The sound of the running shower drowns out any awkward silence there might have been between them as soon as she turns the handle. Alyssa immediately starts stripping. James is the kind of person you don’t have to be embarrassed about being naked around. At least, that’s the way she’s always felt. He hesitates a bit before he starts stripping as well. It seems irrational since he’d just revealed himself to her moments ago, but Alyssa can understand how it can be a bit overwhelming to feel exposed like that.

They get under the water and give each other some time for basic hygiene.

“Feel nice to get cleaned up someplace other than the lake?” she asks.

James tilts his head back, the water slicking his hair down over his eyes. “You’ve no idea.”

She takes the opportunity to assess him while his eyes are closed. He has some scars she hadn’t seen before closer to area where his legs join with his torso. They all look surgical in nature. There are also new marks that look more like puncture wounds. Three small holes on his thigh, four near the area where he was shot. Alyssa reaches forward and light as a feather runs her fingertips over the dots and lines. She traces them like constellations across his skin. It’s a moment before she realizes that James has started watching her.

She thinks he’s about to say something when his arm lunges around her head and his fingers grasp the hair at the back of her scalp. He doesn’t pull or try to hurt her, just holds her there. Then he kisses her, pressing his body against hers until her back is against the shower wall.

Holy shit. She was not expecting that.

He still rarely ever kisses her first. Now he’s all over her, his normal hand still holding the back of her head, and the other one pressed into the small of her back holding her against him. In a way, it’s exciting – until she’s having trouble breathing. Alyssa puts a hand on his chest and pushes him away.

He releases her immediately, and takes a step back looking dazed. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

“S’alright,” she says wiping a hand across her face. “Come on. I want you in the bed.” It really is fine, but she needs to take charge of the situation now. That’s how it has to be. In retrospect, she should have given him some kind of warning.

She steps out of the shower and tosses a towel at him before grabbing her own towel and marching out of the bathroom.

Alyssa dries off and crawls underneath the sheets. She has a plan for exactly how this is going to work out in her mind. He’ll go along with it, she’s sure. She needs to keep herself in control. To keep the flashbacks away. A small sense of dread crawls up her spine when she thinks about it, but she’s able to squash it down. She gets to be with James. _Her_ James.

Alyssa laughs out loud when he comes out of the bathroom. A real, honest, throw your head back and cackle until your abs hurt laugh. “Why’ve you put all your clothes back on?”

He folds his hands in front of himself looking embarrassed, “I.. sorry. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.”

Sometimes he can be so naive for someone who has been through everything he has. She doesn’t really understand why the thought turns her on. Alyssa pats the empty space on the bed beside her, “Come here.”

James walks over and sits on the edge of the bed with his back to her. She pulls the sheet off her body and crawls up behind him, putting her hands on his clothed chest. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, just a bit nervous all of a sudden.” He’s not lying, she can hear it in his voice.

“Do you still want to do this?”

He looks at her over his shoulder. “Yeah, more than anything.”

“Just, follow my lead, okay,” she says grabbing the hem of his shirt.

“Okay.” He raises his arms and allows her to pull his shirt over his head.

“Lie down,” she tells him. He complies and it makes her feel powerful. She’s in charge, and she needs to take good care of him.

Kneeling beside him, she runs her fingers through his hair, down his face brushing his lips, continuing down his chest and stomach until she reaches his trousers. James doesn’t move as she unfastens them and pulls them down along with his underpants. Good, they’re both equally unclothed. He seems comfortable being naked with her now that the initial shock has worn off. Alyssa has to remind herself that he’s matured as much as she has.

“Is it okay if I stroke you?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” It’s good to hear him say it.

His breath visibly hitches in his chest when she grasps him, his eyes wide staring at the ceiling. He’s still mostly hard. Alyssa feels compelled to watch his face as she begins her movements. It’s like his brain can’t quite process what his body is feeling.

“Are you alright?”

He nods his head rapidly looking a bit overwhelmed.

Maybe no one else would understand it, but she thinks he looks lovely like this, vulnerable and putting all his trust into her. Brushing his hair back, she kisses him on the forehead. He tucks his head into the crook of her neck, the side of his face pressing into her chest. Alyssa wonders if he’s trying to listen to her heartbeat.

“You should touch me too, while I’m touching you.”

“Alright,” he says turning onto his side bit.

“Do you remember how I showed you?”

He nods again. James hasn’t ever been the talkative type, but in bed he’s particularly hushed. Alyssa is having one of those moments where she can’t tell exactly what’s going on with him. She thinks maybe it’s just his nerves.

James puts a hand on her waist and slides it down to her hip. She continues her motions as she leans over and kisses him again, then his hand moves into the place she had taught him. She moans into his mouth when he hits the correct spot right away. Shit. She had been right; he does pay attention.

It’s kind of a lot. Stroking him and kissing him while he touches her. Sometimes she has a hard time shutting her brain off so she can just focus on enjoying herself, but right now, it feels like her body is overriding anything she might try to ruminate on.

Their kisses start getting rougher, and Alyssa enjoys it until James sits up and tries to crawl over her. Quick as lightning she grips his shoulders holding him in place. “I’m on top.”

She’s always on top. Fuck, they should have talked about this ahead of time, but she was worried that if he knew she still has issues, he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. He would be so focused on making sure she’s okay that he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.

“Sure, yeah alright.” At least he seems fine with it. She promises herself that she’ll tell him about it later.

“But I think I’m going to need a break if we’re going to keep this going,” he tells her. He must be getting worked up too. “Is it okay if I just focus on you for a bit?"

The question causes Alyssa to feel a warmth spread through her chest. Of course he’s thinking of her. “Do your worst,” she says giving his elbow a playful pinch.

James wraps an arm around her, and she rolls over pressing her back into his chest. He pulls her close and reaches between her legs to rub her again. She feels astonishingly safe like this, curled into his body. It seems like he’s adjusting as well. His mouth is all over her neck, kissing from her shoulders up to her ear. She doesn’t understand how something new to them can feel so familiar to her. But James _is_ familiar, and now that Alyssa’s finally done pushing him away, she’s able to enjoy the comfort of his presence.

Eventually the touching, the kissing, the security, all of it overtakes her, and she’s clawing at the sheets, crying out for James amid a string of profanity. Alyssa catches him smiling at her as she struggles to catch her breath.

“You think this is fucking funny, do you?” she asks turning to look at him.

He pulls his face into a neutral expression as if he were caught doing something he should be ashamed of. “No, I just thought that might be a record number of consecutive swears.”

Alyssa isn’t sure why she does it, but quite suddenly she clamps her hand over his mouth. “I want to fuck you now. Is that okay?”

James nods behind her hand and begins to sit up.

She pushes him back to the bed, “I told you, I’m on top. Always.”

He drops back down and allows her to straddle him over his thighs, only then does she lift her hand from his face. He looks a bit uneasy.

“You sure you’re alright?” she asks.

“Yeah, are you?”

Alyssa takes a moment to actually think about his question. “I’m better than I’ve been in a long time.” She grips him again underneath her and then raises her body slightly. “Are you ready?”

“I am. Just maybe be gentle. I um, I’m still a bit sore. You know, from the operation.”

“Yeah okay.” Alyssa dips all the way forward and brushes her lips lightly against his. When she leans back again, she sinks down on him taking him inside her. His body jerks with a sharp intake of breath, and she thinks he might be about to scream. Then his face splits into a wide grin and his chest begins to shake with uncharacteristic laughter.

Alyssa would tear into him straight away for such a peculiar reaction if only he weren’t the most beautiful thing she’s ever laid eyes on. She plants her hands on either side of his shoulders and starts to move up and down over him.

“Oh… shit.” His eyes nearly roll back into his head, and he grabs onto her waist.

It’s hard for her to think too much about how it feels when she’s so focused on watching his expression. His eyes keep scanning up and down her body as if she’s a page in a book. If it were anyone else, it might make her self-conscious. But it’s James, and he’s always trying to read her.

He’s panting heavily by the time he finally says something. One of his hands moves from her waist to caress her face. “Alyssa, you’re brilliant.”

A strange notion strikes her then. She’s in charge. She’s wholly, thoroughly in control. It doesn’t matter what position they’re in. He’ll do whatever she tells him because he’s chosen to give her that sovereignty. The thought comes to her so suddenly she hasn’t noticed that she’s stopped moving.

“Is something the matter?” James asks.

Alyssa responds by grabbing onto his upper arm and pulling him along as she rolls over. She lands on her back with him between her knees.

“Woah,” he exclaims bracing himself against the headboard to keep from tumbling off the bed.

“Can you manage like this?” she asks. “With your hip and everything?” She hopes she doesn’t sound like she’s being critical of his injuries. Alyssa just wants him to be comfortable.

“Yeah, I think so.” He looks earnestly into her eyes. “Are you alright like this?”

“I’m perfect.”

He nods and carefully presses into her. Astoundingly, it really is okay. She feels secure under him, protected even. And now that she’s just lying there, she’s able to appreciate that it does feel quite nice. It’s not going to last though; she can tell. After a minute or so, his breath quickens and his thrusts become needy, then she hears him moaning into her ear. At least he wasn’t silent the entire time.

His arms give out and his body collapses onto hers. Alyssa doesn’t even mind. She can feel his heart hammering against his ribcage as if it were trying to break its way into her own chest. With one arm wrapped around him, she uses her other hand to stroke the back of his head as he nuzzles into her neck.

When Alyssa was 17, she had tried to make James the answer to her problems. To make him the tether that would pull her out of the dead space she hated being in.

Weeks ago, she had been angry at him for trying to make her the answer.

Now she knows that people have to find a way to be their own answer. But that’s a lot less scary to do when you’ve got someone to hold you in place, so you don’t get lost inside yourself.

\-----------------------------------------------

James wakes up with a hand lightly slapping the side of his face.

“Come on then. I’ve let you conk out on me for the past 15 minutes. My whole body’s going to be numb if you don’t get off.”

He’s totally lost for a moment, then it all comes rushing back to him. For once in his life, the flashbacks aren’t tainted with painful memories. Their skin peels apart as he rises off of her. Even the stale sweat and brief unconsciousness don’t stand a chance of ruining the afterglow.

“God, I always heard some guys pass out right after shagging, but I never thought it would be instantaneous.”

“Sorry,” he says sitting on his knees and searching around for his underpants.

Alyssa props herself up on her elbows and shrugs her shoulders. “S’alright.” She watches him as he gets up to retrieve his clothing. “Was that good for you? I know you hadn’t done it before.”

“Yeah.” He looks at the floor while pulling on his boxers. “I guess that was obvious."

The corners of her mouth turn up in a smile. Every so occasionally, Alyssa really could look quite sweet. “I’m really glad to have had that with you.”

James can’t help himself. He sits beside her on the bed and hugs her tightly around the shoulders. “Thank you so much for coming back to me.”

“James…” She places a hand on his thigh, her voice suddenly sounding somber. “I’d like you to talk to someone about why you feel so sad.”

He pulls back to look at her. “I’m not sad now.”

“Not now, but most times. You’re sad a lot. And you’re lonely. I want you to have more people in your life than just me.”

“I don’t want anyone else.”

“I know, and that’s not okay. You need friends, James. Other people you can talk to and count on. And you need to talk to a professional about all this sadness you’re carrying around. I know it’s more than you can cope with sometimes.”

Just to prove her right, his eyes betray him with tears that threaten to pour out. “I… I don’t know… I’ve tried before, and it just didn’t work.”

“You need to keep trying. Try different people until one suits you. I do it, and I’m way more fucked up than you.”

Someday. Someday he might tell her how fucked up he really is. Or was. All things considered, he’s come a long way in the past two years. Someday he’ll tell her about the time when he thought he was a psychopath. But now’s not the right time.

“Alright, I’ll do it. I’ll call tomorrow to make an appointment.”

Alyssa grabs him and kisses his cheek. “Thanks.” She hops out of bed and heads toward the bathroom. “Let me freshen up, then let’s get something to eat. It’s nearly lunchtime now.”

James grabs the remote off the nightstand and flips on the television. He hadn’t realized they’d let the morning slip away. He flips through the channels is search of a news station. He’d like to know what the weather is going to be like on their trip back.

Alyssa is just walking back into the room when the forecast ends and a news story starts about a pub being robbed at gunpoint. Surveillance footage from the incident starts playing.

“Shit,” he says under his breath. He recognizes the place. It’s the pub they played trivia in the night before. The video shows the gunman ordering everyone behind the bar. Apparently, he held them all hostage for half an hour before turning himself over to police. At one point, you can see the suspect fire a shot at the bartender, grazing his arm and causing a bottle of whiskey to explode on the counter. According to the newsreader it happened around ten p-m. Right after they had left.

“You think trouble follows us around?” she asks sliding into bed next to him.

James swallows a lump in his throat. “I think with our luck, I’d have ended up as the one who was shot if we had been there.”

She takes the remote from his hand and switches the television off. It’s true that once in a blue moon, Alyssa looks sweet, but he thinks the fierce look she has on her face at the moment suits her much better.

“James, if anyone _ever_ tries to hurt you again, I’ll fucking kill them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, who wants to write a sequel where Alyssa kills someone to protect James? In all honesty, though, I hope their homicidal days are behind them.  
> I really tried to make the smut not too explicit in this, and just focused on what they are thinking and feeling. Let me know what you guys think!


End file.
